Arts & Culture Audience Survey Results:
May, June, September 2020 November 10, 2020

A key component of The Essential Journey of Audience Building has been capturing and utilizing data to make informed organizational decisions. The ABR has created a resource library — a knowledgebase — that contains the learning gleaned from experts in a variety of fields and from the very important peer interaction that has been the cornerstone of the ABR. To access that resource, visit www.audiencebuildingroundtable.org/knowledgebase and use the drop-down search function to find the topic categories.

A natural extension of ABR's knowledge-building work has been the partnership with WolfBrown to conduct the Audience Outlook Monitor. The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation has been pleased to fund the surveys in Atlanta, offering participation to the Audience Building Roundtable’s member organizations during the time of COVID. Twenty-one organizations participated from our community, with the responses from their arts & culture audiences providing information about desires, fears, and preferences.

The most recent update on the survey provides a comparison of responses to common questions posed in the May, July, and September surveys and new information about livestreaming, gleaned from the September survey.

In September, the number of respondents who reported being “ready to attend” in-person arts and cultural events increased slightly, as did the percentage of respondents who are making plans to attend and those who have attended an in-person event. But the majority of respondents continue to indicate that they are waiting for conditions to change before participating in indoor activities.

94% of respondents reported that they will spend as much or more than they did before the pandemic on tickets, admissions and memberships, and 96% will donate as much or more than they did before the pandemic (when they return to events.)

And the digital engagement preference results provide insight about what type of online programming audiences are interested in.

Special thanks to the 21 ABR member organizations, from all disciplines, that participated in the study.

CLICK HERE for an infographic of the results from May through September